


Moving to the Moon

by thermodynamicActivity (chlorinetrifluoride)



Series: The Collegestuck 'Verse [25]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - High School, Assault, Disfigurement, Eating Disorders, Gen, Humanstuck, Mental Health Issues, Nonverbal Communication, Past Abuse, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts, Underage Substance Use
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-17
Updated: 2016-02-28
Packaged: 2018-05-21 07:10:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6042763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chlorinetrifluoride/pseuds/thermodynamicActivity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Calliope Calver, and you’re not particularly brave. In fact, you’ve been known for flinching at your own shadow. However, one evening during your sophomore year of high school, you get sick of dealing with your brother’s abuse, and your parents’ reticence, and you fight back the only way you know how.<br/>You run away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. you got the right to choose

**Author's Note:**

> wait, didn't i already write this? yes?
> 
> okay, so "playing with my shadow" is the drabble-based fic that this story is going to be based upon. consider it... something of a draft for this story. consequently, some things are going to be identical between the two (similar phrasing/imagery/ideas/et al). eventually, when this piece gets far enough along, i will probably delete "playing with my shadow". they're not the same, but they are pretty much the same.
> 
> however, this fic is going to take place almost entirely from Calliope's point of view, and follow her from the night she decides to leave home, up until... her high school graduation, probably. that's a span of two and a half years, and i plan to go into quite a bit of detail. Calliope and her roommates are not going to be the only people gaining levels in character development in this fic, particularly since there are going to be frequent references/flashbacks to her childhood.
> 
> i'll add more characters and pairings as they become more plot-relevant. almost everyone is going to make an appearance at some point, including the teacher-ancestors.
> 
> as anyone who is vaguely familiar with my writing schedule knows, this is probably going to take a while for me to finish. i may very well be in graduate school by time i'm done. however, i do have an outline, and i do have the ideas introduced in "playing with my shadow" to fall back on, i just need to flesh them out.
> 
> i hope you enjoy reading this fic as much as i enjoy writing it. seriously.

_I’m packing my space suit,_  
_and I’m taking my shit and moving to the moon,_  
_where there are no rules._  
_Wake up Mary, have you heard the news?_  
_You got to wake up Mary._  
_You got the right to choose._  
-[ Janelle Monae](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rfc1THeisE)

_**4 January 2009** _

Maybe you shouldn’t be reading an anthology of American poetry while snow dances down like New Year’s eve confetti, blanketing the ground, swirling around you, seeping into your hair, your jeans, your skin. You’ll wet the pages.

You sit beneath a playground structure in a park on 14th Avenue, where the blanket of snow is minimal, curled up against the tic-tac-toe spinners to keep yourself warm, and waiting for one of your friends to arrive. This park is equidistant from your respective houses, and you grew up playing in it, hence its being the designated meeting spot. 

Meanwhile, the sky darkens from highlighter twilight to contusion-colored. You scan the area for signs of movement, although it’s not as if you’d be able to see much through the falling snow, which is falling even more thickly now.

You blow into your hands. 

Oh dear, you should have brought gloves, but you weren’t thinking. How could you think, reeling from the white-sharp sting of a busted lip? While Caliborn was breaking stuff, your stuff, his stuff, you’d crammed as many of your personal items as you could into a duffel bag.

He’d wheeled on you, kicking your legs out from underneath you. “You come back here, bitch! This is your fault!”

Maybe it is.

That unthinking prank, the one involving a lighter, a can of air freshener, and a gust of wind that blew in the wrong direction. He was trying to show you how to make a flamethrower, not set you on fire, and you’re willing to believe that much, remembering in the utter shock on his face as you rolled around on the ground screaming. How he’d called your parents.

That stunt is why he got institutionalized; that is why you cannot look at your reflection in the mirror, at the distortions comprised of scar tissue. You press your numbed fingers against them.

After two years in that place, your brother came back even worse than before. Instead of merely being just as mean to you as he was to most everyone, he took special pleasure in making your life miserable. 

It was your fault that he spent two years in Hell, completely and undeniably.

That he wouldn’t have ended up there in the first place had he not done what he did seldom occurs to you. That this was far from the first time his sadism reared its ugly head, that this was only the straw that broke the camel’s back, seldom occurs to you. 

It’s your fault. It’s all your fault. Everything is your fault.

But you needed to get out. As he continued to shout at you, you slung your duffel bag over one shoulder, and went downstairs.

“Where are you going, Calliope?” your father asked from his armchair, not even turning to look at you. Better for him that he did not. Better for your brother, as well.

“Out.” You realized how rude that sounded and amended your statement. “I’m going to stay with friends for a while. A sleepover, you know?”

He grunted his permission.

You crept out the back door, into the frozen unknown, taking the steps two at a time, slipping on the ice, and nearly falling on your ass in the process. 

One last look at the home in which you’d been raised, a nice little frame house in a nice little neighborhood, and you began to sprint. 

After you put around four blocks distance between yourself and that place, you took out your phone and started sending messages.

  
uranianUmbra [UU] began pestering grimAuxiliatrix [GA]  
  
UU: i am sorry to bother yoU, my dear friend, but i have finally done it.  
GA: Done What, Exactly?  
UU: ive rUn away.  
UU: im free.  
GA: Oh Dear  
GA: Are You Safe Callie?  
UU: safer than i have ever been.  
UU: im at main street station waiting for the 7 train.  
UU: althoUgh i do not exactly know where i will go now.

You don’t care. You’ll sleep outside if you have to.

UU: i mUst confess that i did not think my glorioUs escape throUgh enoUgh.  
GA: Hang On For A Moment.  
GA: I Think I May Be Able To Find You Somewhere To Stay.  
UU: ^U^

Of course, you weren’t at Main Street. You weren’t even at the bus stop for the bus that would take you to Main, but you were afraid that dear Kanaya would tell you to just go back home otherwise, that everything could be sorted out in the morning.

So then you called Eridan, who, out of all your friends, lives the closest to your house, and asked him to meet you at the park on 132nd Street. To bring you gloves, a hat, and a scarf.

Something you’ll eternally appreciate about him is that he asks very few questions. Oh sure, he’ll rant about nonsense at length, and theatrically so, on a regular basis. But not when matters are serious. So here you sit, shivering, book of poetry in your lap, and cell phone in your hand, waiting for either of them to respond.

Maybe neither of them will respond. Maybe, underneath the camaraderie and the pity, they cannot stand you. Maybe they’re all just figments of your imagination, and you’re the only real person on Earth.

You feel your mind slipping. You need to ground yourself.

You close the book, one frigid hand on the front cover, and start to recite one of your favorite poems from memory.

 _Let us go then, you and I,_  
_When the evening is spread out against the sky_  
_Like a patient etherized upon a table;_  
_Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,_  
_The muttering retreats_  
_Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels_  
_And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:_  
_Streets that follow like a tedious argument_  
_Of insidious intent_  
_To lead you to an overwhelming question …_  
_Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”_  
_Let us go and make our visit._

Your phone pings.

uranianUmbra [UU] began pestering caligulasAquarium [CA]

CA: ok im almost here jesus actual fuck its like 0 degrees kelvvin all my molecules are more inert than my hopes and dreams i hope you knoww  
CA: wwhere are you  
CA: i havve all the stuff you wwanted  
CA: kinda wwant an explanation  
CA: as soon as i can fuckin FIND you  
UU: Under the playgroUnd  
CA: wwhy couldnt wwe just meet at five guys its right up the block  
CA: they havve fries  
CA: and heat  
CA: mostly fries  
UU: i don’t want Caliborn to find me if he decides to start looking  
UU: i don’t think he will, bUt i do not wish to chance it  
CA: fair enough  
CA: you can come out noww

You do, and make out the faint outline of Eridan’s form. In his black padded jacket, he looks a little bit like a penguin - a penguin with a purple scarf - and it brings a gentle smile to your face, one that pains your mouth.

He dashes to you, and gives you the once over.

“Wow, he really did a number on you this time, didn’t he?” he says, looking as if he’s been made to swallow lemon juice as he eyes your lip. He gestures to the bag slung around your shoulder. “What’s with all the shit?”

The area behind your eyes burns. “I can’t stay home anymore. I walked out.”

Fists in his pockets, he nods, turning his face away from the blowing snow.

“Great. Fan-fuckin-tastic.” He takes hold of your hand. “C’mon, we’re going to Five Guys.”

At your fear, he adds, “If Caliborn shows up, I’ll punch him.”

You highly doubt that Eridan could take your brother in a fight, but it is freezing, and you are chilled nearly to the bone. You allow yourself to be led up 132nd street, boots sliding through the snow. Eridan removes his scarf and winds it around your face to cover your mouth - fewer questions asked that way.

You fill him in on parts of what happened, and on Kanaya’s offer to find you somewhere to stay.

“That’s good at least. Kan’ll come through,” he says. “Maybe with Vris, or something.”

“I’d rather not her,” you confess, through a mouthful of fabric. “She’s too close.”

She is, given that she lives only two neighborhoods away from you, over in Bayside. You want to put as much distance between yourself and Caliborn as humanly possible. You hope Kanaya knows that, but maybe you should have specified it.

So then try to call her, but her phone goes straight to voicemail. She must be talking to someone then.

The warmth of the restaurant greets you like an old friend, and you let out a comfortable sigh. You two pick a pair of seats closest to the door, just so you can see anyone who comes in before they can see you.

“You order for me, yeah?” you ask.

“Got it,” Eridan says with a mock salute.

“You again?” a familiar woman calls from behind the counter. “What is this, m’ijo, the fifth time this week? Does Cronus ever bother to feed you?”

He snorts. “You already know the answer to that, ‘Tula. Sides, I’m ordering for a friend, too.”

He points to you, and Latula waves enthusiastically, some of her hair working its way free from its net.

“Evening, Callie! Nice to see you!”

You raise your hand in greeting, and go back to ruminating.

What if Kanaya never messages you back? It’s been almost two hours since you contacted her. You reopen your book of poetry, and survey the water damage. It’s not too bad, a few pages with warped text, but you never cared much for Ezra Pound in the first place. According to Miss Levin, he was a fascist, anyway.

Whatever Eridan says to Latula takes far longer than making an order should require, and by the end of it, she’s nodding gravely, sparing the occasional glance at you. Great. Add her to the list of people who feel sorry for you.

You’re not sure why it rankles you so, the pity of others. Were you on the outside observing some girl who had been through identical circumstances, you would feel sorry for her. Still, it needles at you. It feels like a breach of privacy, or something of the sort, since he neglected to ask you before telling Latula your life story.

Then again, you’ve known the Pyrope sisters for… pretty much forever. That’s how it works when you’ve lived only a mile away from them for several years. 

She used to babysit you. Maybe she deserves to know. Maybe she can help you, somehow. Not with houseroom - she and Terezi live even closer to Caliborn than Vriska does - but with… something?

You don’t know. You lean forward and rest your head on the cool table.

You think about Latula and the past. 

When you, Terezi, Vriska, Tavros, Eridan, and occasionally Caliborn (if he wasn’t being a complete tool) played together in the park on 20th avenue and got sodas from the pizzeria on 15th, when Latula was stuck watching the lot of you. Before junior high. Before the prank. Back when Tavros could still walk.

The past, where everything was so much simpler.

 _Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt_ , you think to yourself, remembering a quote from yet another book: Slaughterhouse Five.

You’d had visions for the future. You thought you could do anything.

And now? And now? All you can muster is a sort of dull resignation about tomorrow. _(Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.)_

You press your fingertips to your face again, reacquainting them with the bumpy tissue. Another quote from Vonnegut. _So it goes._

Miss Levin is right: you should major in English when you go to university. Your knack for remembering pieces of literature borders on the photographic.

 _That is, if you live long enough to see university,_ the dark little voice in the back of your mind tells you. A lot can happen in two years. You crack a mirthless, painful grin, and blink away the burning behind your eyes. Your tears serve nothing. They cannot turn back time.

Maybe Caliborn will kill you in a fit of rage. Maybe you’ll find the bravery to do the job yourself. You keep going back and forth with yourself, mental arguments that only people like Eridan or maybe Sollux can understand, over whether that course of action constitutes courage or cowardice.

The scales never tip a certain way for long.

Your phone pings again.

GA: I Have Been Talking To My Sister.  
GA: I Believe I May Have Found A Temporary Place For You To Stay.  
GA: I Will Give You More Details When I Have Them.  
GA: Are You Safe Where You Are.

 _Are you safe, Callie? Are you?_ _Thinking of the third rail in Lexington Avenue station the way you always do when life overwhelms you?_

Kanaya does not need to know about all that.

UU: of coUrse! I am cUrrently in five gUys with eridan!  
GA: I Suppose That Counts As An Approximation Of Safe  
GA: Tell Him That I Still Have His Chemistry Notebook.  
GA: Also  
GA: I Should Be Getting Back To You Shortly.  
UU: thank yoU so very mUch for all of yoUr assistance.  
GA: It’s Not A Problem.  
GA: And Let Me Know If Anything Changes.

After a few more words exchanged with Latula, Eridan returns with the food, a baconized monstrosity for him, and a giant order of fries for you. He shrugs out of his jacket and drapes it over the back of his chair.

“Happy belated birthday, I guess,” he says. It takes you a second to remember that you turned sixteen only two days ago. 

Janey threw a surprise party at her house for you, cake and everything, with all of your friends in attendance. You’d actually been happy, then, come to think of it. But that emotion seems faraway and dim right now, with your lip throbbing even worse for each salty french fry you manage to eat.

You are unsure of how someone can daintily eat a double cheeseburger, but Eridan manages it.

“Any word from Kan yet?” he wants to know.

You pick at your fries.

“Sort of.”

“And?”

“She said she’ll get back to me, but she thinks she’s found somewhere.”

Eridan grins as if the matter is done and dusted already. You envy his hope. He slicks back his wet hair, which has begun to drip-dry.

You and he sit in companionable silence as the seconds give way to minutes, and to hours. 

The few patrons who had braved the blizzard to get their fix of empty calories take their leave in twos and threes, until the place is nearly empty. You think about texting Kanaya again, worried that she somehow forgot about you, but she isn’t that sort of person.

Another half hour drifts by before your phone pings again.

GA: Akuba Says  
GA: Well I Mean Porrim  
GA: She Says You Can Stay With Her At Her Apartment.  
GA: I Am Not Sure Of The Address.  
GA: However I Gave Her Your Handle So She Should Be Contacting You Momentarily.  
GA: She Has A Roommate As Well  
GA: I Do Not Know If That Will Be An Issue For You  
UU: as long as they are as kind as yoU and she have been to me, i doUbt it will!  
UU: i wish i coUld properly express my gratitUde in words  
GA: I Am Only Doing What Any Friend Would Do For A Friend In Need.  
GA: Good Luck.

“We close in ten minutes!” one of the cooks calls. 

Eridan, who has either been dozing or nodding awakens with a start.

“They’re with me. They’re leaving with me,” Latula responds, the uncharacteristically serious look on her face putting paid to any possible objections. 

However, you work in a diner on Kingsbridge Road thrice a week, and you know that rules are rules. The last thing you would ever want to do is get someone in trouble.

“Eridan and I could wait outside,” you offer. Latula shakes her head, staring out the window at the raging snowstorm.

“Yeah, no, you two are not freezing your skinny asses out there. You’re leaving when I’m leaving, and not a second before,” she insists.

Your phone pings again, from a username you do not recognize.

gothicAlacrity [GA] would like to add you on Pesterchum.

You smile at the _“GA”_ and accept the request.

UU: hello!  
GA: Go+o+d evening. Is this Callio+pe?  
UU: yes. i assUme this is porrim?  
GA: Of course.  
GA: Kanaya says yo+u need so+mewhere to+ stay fo+r a while.  
UU: i do.  
UU: i really do.

You leave out the part about your choices being between getting away from your brother or deciding to do something rash. That’s a dramatic exclamation worthy of Eridan, and no way to make a first impression.

GA: Then, yo+u are in luck.  
GA: My apartment is small, but I am sure I can make ro+o+m fo+r ano+ther perso+n.  
UU: oh no  
UU: am i inconveniencing yoU?  
UU: i can find somewhere else if that is the case  
GA: No+t in the least. Do+ no+t wo+rry.  
GA: Fro+m what I can gather, yo+u have eno+ugh to+ wo+rry abo+ut as it is.

That same nagging sense of betrayal again. How much does Porrim know? Why didn’t Kanaya ask before telling her sister about your circumstances?

Maybe because your decision to run for it would have made little sense otherwise. Still.

(Why are you angry? Why are you angry? Don’t you know that you can’t get angry? That will make you no better than your brother. So you swallow it down until it’s practically nothing.)

Eridan notices your distress and puts his hand on yours. Thoughts spin aimlessly around in your mind. Even if Porrim says you’re not inconveniencing her, you can’t help but wonder if she’s lying. Not a malicious lie, but the sorts you’ve heard from otherwise well-meaning people.

_“You’re going to be just fine.”_

_“Oh, Callie, you look beautiful today.”_

You don’t want to inconvenience her, and you don’t want her to decide to kick you out, so your fingers fly across the keypad of your phone, typing out a response.

UU: jUst so yoU know, i have a job in kingsbridge.  
UU: i can contribUte to rent, food money, and things of that natUre.  
UU: i can do my part.  
UU: i can be UsefUl.  
UU: i promise.  
GA: Calliope.  
GA: Calm do+wn.  
UU: ok  
GA: I think it wo+uld be better fo+r us to discuss this after yo+u’ve arrived and go+tten a go+o+d night’s sleep, ho+nestly.  
UU: i Understand.  
UU: i’m sorry for talking so mUch  
GA: No+ harm do+ne. Do+ no+t wo+rry abo+ut it.  
GA: At any rate, my address is 58 Chrystie St.  
GA: Yo+u need to+ catch the B/D and take it do+wnto+wn to+ Grand St.  
GA: O+nce yo+u get off, make a left o+nto Chrystie and walk two+ blo+cks so+uth.  
GA: Call me when yo+u are o+utside, o+r if yo+u get lo+st at any po+int.  
GA: O+r if yo+u need so+meo+ne to+ talk to+.  
GA: I’ll be awake waiting fo+r yo+u, with my pho+ne clo+se at hand.  
UU: thank yoU so very mUch..  
GA: Yo+u are welco+me.

The restaurant closes at ten, but Latula stays at least an hour later than that, cleaning up, and making sure everything is in order. Eridan’s too absorbed in his own respective text message conversation to pay much attention, and the joy in his expression betrays that he must be talking to none other than Feferi.

You like her, even if the fact that she seems to only speak in exclamations alarms you sometimes. She has always been kind to you. Everyone has always been kind to you.

(Because they feel sorry for you, more than likely.

You wonder what it would be like to be a normal girl and make friends the normal way, without wondering if every new friend of yours is secretly treating you as their personal charity case.)

Tossing her red apron over one shoulder, Latula jingles her car keys in front of Eridan’s face by way of getting his attention. “Let’s get outta here before the snow gets any deeper.”

You and Eridan walk outside with her, wincing against the wind, and slide into the back seat of her car. She makes some remark about how rad it is that she doesn’t have to shovel her car out, and shifts it into gear, looking over her shoulder and out the back windshield for cars or pedestrians.

“So kids, where are we going?”

Eridan scowls. “Home, I guess.”

Latula gazes at the rearview mirror, locking eyes with you. “And you, Callie?”

You look down at the screen of your phone, at the address Porrim gave you, mentally calculating how you’d get there.

“Main Street Station,” you reply.

Latula raises an eyebrow. She turns onto 14th and starts toward the expressway. “I’m assuming you have a destination beyond that.”

You do, but it would be presumptuous to ask her to drive you all the way to Manhattan. She’s just come off an eight hour shift working on her feet and must be exhausted. You’re a waitress, you get it.

You tell her this, she manages to not roll her eyes, but only barely, muttering something about never being too tired to make sure people are alright. She turns on her windshield wipers so that she can see through the thickly falling snow.

As she drives through Whitestone, she passes your house. Fear chokes out of you any response you might have. You squeeze Eridan’s hand until he gets the message.

CA: callie  
CA: i knoww it dont fuckin feel like it right now  
CA: but youre gettin the fuck awway from there  
CA: its ok to be afraid  
CA: but fuckin remember that youre going somewwhere he cant get to you

You hope so, you surely do.

CA: ill tell rox about this if you wwant  
CA: shes been anxious evver since i told her i wwas comin to get you at the park  
CA: jane and jake too  
CA: not tellin dork strider tho because ill have a legitimate convversation with him ovver my dead body 

No sense in worrying some of your favorite people.

UU: i woUld appreciate that greatly.

As it turns out, Eridan’s along for the ride to wherever you’re going. He doesn’t want to go home either. Again, Latula asks you where your true destination is. Eridan pats your shoulder encouragingly.

“Fifty-eight Chrystie,” you finally tell her in a strangled whisper. “I think it’s in Chinatown.”

Instead of asking you where on Earth that is, she breaks into a wide grin.

“That so?” she asks. “Tell Tunez I said hi when you get there.” 

She merges onto the I-278, opens the window to flip off the driver who just cut her off, and adds, “come to think of it, he’s prolly asleep right now, don’t actually do that.”

You have no idea who this “Tunez” is, but you promise to do so.

She offers to drop you off right at the door, but you will have no such thing. Not just because it’s out of her way, but because you want… no, need to be alone for a while. You need to think. You need to sit somewhere with better lighting than this car, to rummage through your duffel bag, and find out what you actually took with you.

Besides, her altruism is making you uncomfortable, but you don’t know how to articulate that. You shake your head with as much emphasis as possible.

She’s put off by this, but agrees readily enough.

“It’s late, Callie, probably too late for you to be on the train alone, but whatever,” she replies, before another thought occurs to her. “So how’s about a compromise, huh?”

“Compromise?”

“I’ll drop you off at a closer stop. It’ll be easier for you to get downtown from there.”

You give a timorous nod of assent to this plan.

“Cool. Fuckin’ rad. I know exactly where to take you.”

“Okay.”

She continues down the highway to an exit you barely notice, and turns onto some random street. Not any random street. It looks fairly well traveled, many storefronts still lit even though it must be after midnight.

She pulls up in front of a train station, to the consternation of pretty much every motorist behind her, and unlocks the passenger doors. You pick up your bag, and get out of the car. Latula rolls down the window, and motions for you to come over.

“Alright, Callie, what you wanna do is take the F to…” She racks her brains. “Fuck, Rockefeller Center, I guess. And then get the D train. Take that downtown to Grand. I gotta get out of here before I get a ticket.”

The honking of car horns behind her reaches a crescendo.

“You got it?” she asks, eyes darting to and fro.

“Yes Latula,” you say. “Thank you so much for all y—”

But she’s already rolled up the window, and pulled out of the space. Eridan kneels upon the back passenger seat and waves to you as they drive away.

You gaze at the train station before you -  74th Street - Roosevelt Avenue - and walk down the slippery steps. You’ve never been to this station before. In fact, you can count all the times you’ve taken the subway on one hand.

The last time you took the train, with dear Roxy, she only needed to glance at the map before she’d plotted out the route to her destination, and she’d been staggeringly drunk at the time.

But she takes the train every day. You do not.

You look at the giant subway map, and all you see are colored lines, like the strings Jade ties ‘round her fingers to remember things. Ironic, that, considering that now you’re so nervous, you’ve completely forgotten everything Porrim and Latula told you about where to go.

What if you get lost? What if you get swallowed up in this labyrinth? What if you get there and Porrim tells you that she can’t actually keep you? What if? What if?

What a total fool you were, not letting Latula drop you off. You’re going to be stuck wandering the maze forever. Your phone gets no bars underground. You can’t even text one of your friends for reassurance or information.

You press your palms into your eyes and take several deep breaths.

Grand Street, Callie. You’re going to Grand Street. You find your current location on the map, and, fingertip shaking, trace the path you need to take in order to get downtown. The F line is orange on the map, just like the D. Why that reassures you, you have no idea, but you’ll take it.

You take the stairs down another level to the platform. You find a little bench, and sit down, trying not to rock back and forth, trying not to draw too much attention to yourself. You tie Eridan’s scarf more tightly around your mouth. Nobody needs to know about things you don’t want to talk about. 

What if some well-meaning person calls the cops and they decide to send you back home?

That can’t happen. That won’t happen. You won’t let it happen.

The station’s nearly deserted. You’re not sure whether that’s a good thing or not. You take advantage of the lull to take stock of your belongings. You’ve brought a towel, two changes of clothes, your graphing calculator, your laptop, your three-ring binder, and some textbooks. You hope that’s all you need, because you are not going back.

After several tense minutes, a train wooshes into the station, blowing stale air into your face before coming to a stop. The doors snap open, and you stand there, hesitant. What if it’s the wrong train? What if you’re getting yourself more lost?

 _“This is the Manhattan bound F train…”_ a robotic voice intones. _“The next stop is 21st Street - Queensbridge…”_

You dash onto the train just as the conductor warns everyone to stand clear of the closing doors. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Even if you end up in New Jersey (do these trains go to Jersey), it’ll be far away from Caliborn.

All things considered, even with the frequent delays - _“We are being held momentarily by the train’s dispatcher. We apologize for any inconvenience…_ ” - your ride is uneventful. You get off the F at Rockefeller Center, and transfer to the D. 

From there, it’s a straight shot to your destination.

When that cool female voice finally announces, “This is Grand Street”, you feel more confident than you have in weeks, and you march off the train triumphantly.

You’ve done it. You made it. You’re free. You look around the station with wonder, imbued with newfound energy. This is it, Calliope Calver. For the first time ever, you are in control. All you have to do now… all you have to do now, is what Porrim told you to do once you get upstairs. Turn onto Chrystie, and walk south.

_58 Chrystie Street… 58 Chrystie Street… 58 Chrystie Street…_

You murmur the address like a mantra against your doubts. Then, you march up the stairs to ground level, where the snowstorm continues to rage. 

You can’t see three feet in front of you, your confidence blown in an instant. This is not what you imagined. Wrapping your arms tightly around yourself, you squint at the nearest street sign, which itself is caked in snow to the point of being unrecognizable.

Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no, no.

(You’ll be lost forever, Callie. Useless, stubborn, can’t even follow basic directions.)

A few individuals walk past and around you, but you’re too terrified to ask for directions. What is this place. Where are you? Where are you going? Holding onto the side of buildings to keep from falling, you stumble in the direction you think is south. 

You keep going, eyes slitted against the snow. You wonder what time it is, because you know quite some time has passed, you’ve been moving so slowly. And you’re colder than you can ever remember being.

A man hollers obscenities and advances at you, and you stagger faster in the opposite direction, heart pounding in your chest.

What an idiot you were for making this trip alone.

The one sign you can make out reads Forsyth St, and that is not the right place, not at all. You slog your way through a massive snow drift until you find the entrance to a park, partially obscured by snow. 

Maybe you should call Porrim. She knows Manhattan, surely she must be able to find you or tell you to go, even if you’re miles away from your destination. But what if she can’t?

And you’re so cold. You just want to sit down. Streetlights flicker, and terse looking people spare not a second glance at the strange girl in the park during a snowstorm. There’s a playground at its center.

You stumble over to it, and pull yourself underneath the structure, trying not to think too much about why it comforts you so. Like a security blanket, this.

(You and Terezi and Aradia and Eridan and Vriska and Tavros and Caliborn pretended to make a fort, to keep out the enemy.

The enemy? Why, the teenagers of course. Always drinking and smoking in the park after dark, disposing of their empty Heineken bottles in your sacred fort like pigs. Threatening you just because they could, although they weren’t there at the moment. Still too light out.

Caliborn had taken an empty bottle, broken it against one of the metal bars, and brandished it at the air.

“I’ll get them all,” he swore. It took all of you to talk him down from that course of action.

Even though Latula was fourteen, and therefore a teenager, she was ok. She was the exception. She was Good. She told you stories about the Ninth Grade, which was purely theoretical to all of you, and therefore a fairy tale of its own. Being in High School practically made you an adult, at least to your ten year old selves.

She was always Good. Even after the cigarette lighter incident. Even after your little group was whittled down by one, Caliborn sent off to that institution for children with problems.

Even after Tavros accidentally lost his footing and fell from that roof, goaded to climb so high by Vriska, Latula was still Good. She never treated Tavros like an untouchable, the way many of her friends did.

“Look at it this way, you can probably wheel that thing faster than I can run,” she said. “Sides, you don’t even need a skateboard to take on a half-pipe. How rad is that?”

Tavros smiled, genuinely. Everyone else was quick to agree.

She and Terezi never called you pretty with smiles that wouldn’t reach their eyes, never paid you any untrue compliments out of pity. The way she told it, you were possibly better than that. You were a Cool Kid. You looked like you fought a fire breathing dragon and won.

You didn’t have to be attractive. There were better things to aspire to.)

You curl up, listening to the hush of falling snow, to the sound of memory, wondering if you could just white yourself out right here. Close your eyes and lose yourself in 2003.

But that would be a disservice to all who have tried to help you. 

So with numb fingers - why didn’t you put on the gloves Eridan gave you? - you open pesterchum.

uranianUmbra [UU] began pestering gothicAlacrity [GA]

UU: i am sorry to bother yoU  
GA: Yo+u are no+t bo+thering me.  
GA: I was waiting fo+r you to+ message me, and beginning to+ wo+rry.  
UU: then i am sorry for worrying yoU  
GA: Yo+u do+n’t have to+ apo+lo+gize, Calliope.  
GA: Where are yo+u?  
UU: im not sUre.  
UU: i got off the train at grand jUst like yoU told me  
UU: and then i tUrned onto a street i thought was chrystie  
UU: bUt that was not the case  
UU: im so sorry.  
GA: It’s no+t yo+ur fault.  
GA: If anything, it’s mine. The sno+w o+ut there is so+ thick that it’s no+ wo+nder yo+u go+t o+ut o+f so+rts.  
GA: What landmarks are you near? Are yo+u near any sto+res? What was the last street sign yo+u saw?  
UU: i’m in a park.  
UU: on forsyth  
UU: at least i believe so,  
GA: O+h! Yo+ure no+t far away at all!  
GA: Where in the park are yo+u?  
UU: Underneath a playgroUnd.  
GA: I see.  
GA: I’ll be with yo+u in a mo+ment, just let me put o+n a co+at.  
UU: im so sorry.

You must sound like a broken record with all the sorries you’ve been giving.

GA: It’s alright, yo+u abso+lutely need no+t apo+lo+gize for anything, Callio+pe. I’m co+ming to+ find yo+u.

You open the duffel bag, careful not to expose your books to any snow, extricate and apply Eridan’s gloves. Then, with herculean effort, you crawl out from under the playground. Porrim would never be able to find you there.

In your snow-numbed mental fog, you continue reciting poetry to yourself in order to stay in the present, in order to spur yourself onward.

 _Shall I part my hair behind?  Do I dare to eat a peach?_  
_I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach._  
_I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each._

_I do not think that they will sing to me._

By the time you stagger back to the park’s entrance, a woman stands there, in a billowing night dress, leggings, a double-breasted black jacket and heavy boots.

You catch sight of her stern displeasure, and nearly take off in the opposite direction - _Please don’t hurt me, i’m sorry, please!_  -  but she softens when she sees you. She introduces herself and offers you her arm, which you loop in your own.

“We had better get you inside,” she says gently. She removes her jacket and drapes it over your shoulders. You hesitate.

“Won’t you get cold?”

“I’m wearing a sweater,” she replies, as if that’s the end of that. “And you’re colder. God, you’re going to get sick like this.”

As it turns out, Chrystie St is only across the park from Forsyth. You berate yourself for getting lost and making her come out in the snow, but she’s quick to point out how easy it would have been for you to get so spectacularly turned around in this weather.

“It was my oversight, to be perfectly frank.”

Arm still laced with yours, she unlocks the door to her building onehandedly, and leads you up three flights of stairs, giving you the rundown on the place, including the fact that the heat is shit because the landlord is a tool. You giggle a bit at that. Before she opens the door to her apartment, however, her voice drops to a low whisper.

“Try not to make too much noise. Mituna - my roommate, that is - he’s asleep.”

You will take pains to be quiet as a mouse.

“But don’t worry too much,” she continues, turning the key in the lock. “He sleeps like the dead.”

With the only light coming from a dim lamp in the corner of the apartment, you can barely make out your surroundings. But it’s okay. Porrim walks you into the bathroom, and asks you to get into the tub.

“You can drop your wet clothes here, while I find you something to change into. I’ll close the door, if you want privacy.”

More than anything, you want to believe that you’re not alone, that you aren’t the last person on Earth (that irrational fear again, with the place so silent), so you politely refuse her offer.

“Suit yourself,” she replies. “I could fix you something to eat, if you’re hungry.”

You try for a smile that won’t split your lip. “Thank you so much, but I purchased food before I came here. I still have some, you know.” You point to your duffel bag. “The fries are probably cold, but you can have them if you want.”

She says something about needing to watch her figure, but thanks you for the offer, nevertheless.

Once you’ve stripped down to your underwear, which is relievingly dry, she gestures that you follow her over to the closet. Except it’s not a closet, really. Not a bedroom, either. More like an alcove. The floor in here is carpeted, and looks comfortable. You sit down. Porrim switches on the light and tosses you several articles of clothing, which you put on.

She must be quite thin for her clothes to fit you so easily. Other than her tall stature, you two might be nearly the same size. 

Porrim kneels so that you and she are eye-to-eye.

“May I take a look at you?” she asks.

You make a fist. Unclench it. Repeat the gesture a few times until your heart rate normalizes. 

“Yes you may.”

She leaves the alcove momentarily and returns with a thermometer, which she deposits under your tongue. You’re shivering so hard that you nearly bite down upon it.

When it beeps, she takes it out and scrutinizes it.

“I expected as much. Low, but not worrying,” she says, more to herself than to you.

This is not your element in the least, so you decide to take her word for it. She checks your extremities for something, though you’re not sure what. Frostbite, maybe. Then, she takes your chin between her thumb and forefinger and carefully peers at your lip.

“Pretty ugly, but I don’t think it’ll need stitches,” she concludes. “It’s going to look even uglier in the morning, just so you know.”

(You’re accustomed to things looking ugly in the morning, this is nothing new)

“Okay.”

Porrim claps her hands once. “You can suck on ice to keep some of swelling down, though. Think Tuna’s got ice pops in the freezer, too, though why he bought them in January is beyond me.”

She throws up her hands in faint frustration, and shakes her head.

 _Mituna. Tuna._  

This must be the “Tunez” Latula was telling you about, the snoring heap on the futon in front of the television, who apparently eats ice pops in January.

At any rate, Porrim’s cool, calm demeanor sets part of you at ease. The other part of you screams about how you don’t deserve such nice treatment. 

The dichotomy is an itch you cannot scratch. You want to punch something, to break something, until you feel nothing at all.

“Anyway, are you hurt anywhere else?” Porrim presses on. “Did you hit your head on anything?”

You think about it for a moment, and respond in the negative. You don’t think you did.

“Good, ‘cause head injuries can be dicey stuff.”

She takes a tiny, tube-shaped flashlight out of her pocket, and shines it into your eyes. She asks you to follow her finger with your gaze until she seems satisfied. 

When you find the courage to talk again, you tug on her sleeve until she responds.

“Yes?”

“So are you a doctor or something?”

She has a musical laugh for that, one that fills your chest with warmth.

“Me?” she asks, pointing to herself. “Do I really look that old?”

Your eyes widen in sudden alarm. Oh, no, you’ve offended her. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean it like–”

She puts a gentle hand on top of your head.

“It’s all good, I was only kidding. I’m a nursing student, nothing more. And I’d like to get you checked out by a doc–…” At the look on your face, she corrects herself. “Listen, I know a few clinics that’ll take a look at you no questions asked. But only if you want to go.”

“Maybe,” you tell her, chewing at the inside of your cheek until you draw blood. It’s not punching something, but the copper-metallic taste will do. “I guess. I don’t know.”

“Well, let me make you some hot chocolate, and we’ll talk about it later on. No rush,” she says.

“Thank you.” 

Before she pads into the kitchenette, she hands you a dark yellow bathrobe to go with the million and one layers of clothes you’re now wearing, one you don and practically drown in. You wonder if this is what being mummified feels like.

It beats being frozen.

“D’you want marshmallows? My sister always takes marshmallows in hers,” Porrim says, with a girlish, conspiratorial smile. If she’d looked like a furious twenty-five year old in the park, this expression sands her features down to a young seventeen.

You nod, mutely, continuing to sit in the corner of this little room. She never suggests that you come with her, so you don’t. 

Instead, you gaze around the closet, at all the beautiful clothes. She must be like Kanaya in that respect. There are several articles that look too big for Porrim, but you don’t have the energy to wonder on them much.

You curl up and close your eyes, dreaming up your childhood, imagining your fort back in Whitestone. Terezi pretending to try Aradia as a war criminal for eating her ice cream without asking, and sentencing her to five minutes in the park bathroom, which stinks to the high heavens.

“And what have you to say in your defense?” She demands, jabbing Aradia in the clavicle with one bony finger.

Aradia shrugs. “Tavros ate half of it.”

“Oho, so this is a double case of theft,” Terezi says, rubbing her hands together. Nothing makes her happier than meting out swift justice.

For his part, Tavros leaps to his feet and proclaims at the top of his lungs, “I regret nothing!”

All of you descend into fits of laughter.

A few years later, and he would be unable to jump. And the stray zits that had begun popping up on your forehead would be the least of your worries. This is the way the world ends.

You stare at the particleboard wall of the closet, and let yourself cry, silently sobbing so you do not wake Porrim’s roommate. Sure, you’re happy when you’re around your friends, buoyed upward by their presence, by their reassurance, but that’s only a temporary state of being. And sure, many of them have experienced their fair share of  trauma, but you still feel isolated. You have the words but not the bravery to articulate them.

So you cry for the fort, you cry for what happened to Tavros, you cry for what Caliborn has become, you cry for the things that have been done to you, and you cry for not being strong enough to stop crying.

Porrim returns with the hot chocolate, sets the tray down on the carpeting, and cradles you in her arms, her shoulder muffling your wailing. She rocks you back and forth, your head tucked under her chin, and does not judge you for being able to stop shaking.

She murmurs soothing words, words that sound like nonsense to you now, but are in a language you would later learn was Akan.

Porrim is nice, with all the soft things she says, and Porrim is warm, and Porrim is safe, and Porrim is Good (just like Latula), and maybe you don’t have to feel weak for losing it in front of her. You wipe at your eyes and nose with the back of your arm, and once more, anxiety rears its ugly head. Fear of loss. Fear of judgment. Fear of inadequacy.

“I don’t know if I should stay here,” you tell her.

“And why is that?”

“I’m messed up. I’m really messed up. I mean, look at me, running away and all. And you, you’re probably only letting me stay because you feel sorry for me, just like everyone else.”

Your body shakes with anger. Porrim neither agrees, nor disagrees.

Instead, she tells you a story.

Once upon a time, there was a young woman who was in a relationship with another woman. When her parents found out, they were livid. How could she do this to them? How could she comport herself in such a sinful way, after all they had done to raise her properly? They gave her an ultimatum, leave the woman, or leave their family.

Obviously, she left, wheeling all her worldly possessions behind her in two rolling suitcases, but not before a shouting match with her father ended in her getting punched in the eye. Later, she found an apartment with a friend of hers, and began living on her own terms, at last.

She takes a cookie off the tea tray on which she’d put the mugs and pops it into her mouth, chewing slowly.

“We’re all messed up,” she concludes. “Some of us more than others.”

“I know.” You feel sick now. “And I apologize for my loss of temper.”

“It’s all fine.” She pushes the tray over to you. “Better drink that before it gets cold, though.”

You sip at your hot chocolate, and contemplate your new residence, and your new roommates. You’re slightly afraid of Mituna, mostly because you haven’t gotten to know him, but if Latula’s involved with him, he must be a decent person. You lean your head back against the wall, and mentally recite the mantra that kept you going through the snow.

_58 Chrystie Street. 58 Chrystie Street. 58 Chrystie Street._

You’re terrified, but you’re not alone. You are in control, now. 

That has to mean something. 

Mituna awakens briefly, sits bolt upright, and asks Porrim if the Infected have breached their defenses, without so much as a second glance at you.

The infected with what? Is he talking about you?

Not missing a beat, Porrim assures him that the shambling hordes have yet to break through the barricade, and that the living should be expecting reinforcements at any moment.

“Ok, good, like, awesome,” he says. “Remember, you gotta go for the head. Burn the bodies. Don’t let ‘em bleed on you, whatever you fuckin’ do.” 

“I got it. I’ll be careful. I always am.”

Then, Mituna rolls over, and begins to snore once more. 

You and Porrim exchange glances.

“Tuna’s prone to having strange dreams, particularly when he falls asleep watching 28 Days later.”

“Right.”

Porrim sighs. “In all honesty, it’s best just to go with it.”

Later, before you pass out on the makeshift bed Porrim has macgyvered out of a bunch of blankets, you contact two of your friends. 

UU: i got to porrim’s safely  
UU: jUst so yoU know  
GC: th4ts gr34t k1ddo!  
UU: I was going to greet MitUna as per yoUr instrUctions, but he is asleep.  
UU: I do not think one coUld get mUch more asleep than he is.  
GC: 1m not 1n th3 l34st surpr1s3d  
GC: my b4b3 1s pr3d1ctabl3 4s fuck  
GC: try to g3t som3 sl33p yours3lf  
GC: 4nd l3t m3 know 1f you n33d anyth1ng

You probably won’t, she’s already done so much, but you appreciate the offer. You message Eridan.

UU: i have arrived!  
CA: oh thank god i was beginnin to think you froze to death or ended up in staten fuckin island or some shit  
UU: i did no such thing!  
CA: yea wwell ovverjoyed as i am to hear a your safe journey  
CA: it is half past ass o clock  
CA: go the hell to sleep  
CA: also rox wwants to knoww all the details tomorroww so prepare for an interrogation  
UU: i shall!

As you close your eyes, Porrim sits next to you, patting your forehead, and telling you all about Ghana, how she and Meenah (that’s her girlfriend) are going to go there someday. 

Obviously they can’t act like a couple, the situation in Accra being what it is, but she wishes to see the land of her ancestors again. The last time she went, she was a toddler.

“Yaaba can’t ever stop talking about Coco Beach. I think she prefers water to most people. Swimming and dance, her two true loves, although I think I’m in there somewhere,” she laughs. 

You drift off. 

Porrim’s tone rises and falls in a gentle cadence, a lullaby without music. She keeps going long after you’ve fallen asleep, which is just as well. You like her voice. You could get used to it. 

You could get used to this. You could get used to feeling secure, even if only for fleeting moments like these.


	2. no sleep in heaven, or bethlehem

_Mama, who bore me_   
_mama who gave me_   
_no way to handle things,_   
_who made me so sad…_

_Mama, the weeping,_  
 _mama, the angels,_  
 _no sleep in heaven, or Bethlehem._  
\- [Spring Awakening](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkqNulz41ww)

_**5 January 2009** _

You want to say that you rest easy knowing that you are miles away from Caliborn for the first time in years, but that would be a boldfaced lie, and not even a good one. You toss and turn on your makeshift bed, drifting into slumber for no more than a few minutes at a time, your mind a muddle of melancholy over the past, and apprehension for the future.

Even if your parents don’t drag you back home, which they just might, you still attend school with Caliborn. You’re not in any of the same classes, but the point is, he’s _there_. And he’ll be there until he either graduates, or gets himself expelled.

Silently, you hope he manages the second thing. He _could_ , too.

And swaddled in the oversized bathrobe Porrim lent you, you quietly tip-toe back toward the alcove where she looked you over. You do better in small enclosed spaces anyway. 

Porrim and Mituna are both passed out on the futon in the main room, Porrim with one of her arms thrown around his waist, Mituna snoring loud enough to wake the dead, and his face buried in her hair. He still hasn’t registered your presence yet, although he did get up to use the bathroom maybe fifteen minutes ago.

It nearly makes you smile, how close they must be to share such a small sleeping area. She said they were best friends. Maybe, when you're older, you'll have friends like that, too. And, though the lights are off for the sole exception of a lamp by the window, you ca pictures tacked onto the wall nearest to the kitchen.

It’s mostly the two of them, Latula, and another young man whose visage makes your skin crawl for some reason. His dark eyes, the paint on his face, all of these feel like dissonant chords within your head, but you can't quite place why. Occasionally they're joined by another young man in a red turtleneck, who doesn't look altogether pleased to be in these pictures. And a dark-skinned woman with close-cropped hair, with the exception of two thin braids, who stands right beside Porrim in every single picture she’s in. You figure that must be Meenah, and she really does look a great deal like her younger sister, penchant for menswear aside.

It’s not as if you aren’t the same way. All button down shirts, sweater vests, bow ties, and immaculately ironed pants.

You spy a few spare hangers in the closet, and use them to hang your trousers and shirts so they don’t wrinkle. You have yet to ask Porrim where she keeps her ironing board (surely she has one), but a quarter after four in the morning would hardly be the time. 

She resembles a thinner, shorter, and more sleep deprived version of Kanaya. She clearly needs the shut-eye.

You dig your Math B review book out of your duffel bag, along with your three-ring binder, which you open to the section dedicated to 6th period trig. It’s been several months since sophomore year began and you haven’t the foggiest clue how you tested into the honors section, a feeling your grades reflect.

If you even manage a 70 overall, you’ll die of shock and elation.

You had been nearly finished with your homework for this class when Caliborn flew into his latest fit of rage.

Not like you could complete it while you were running for your life.

Still, Ms. Sakamoto seldom accepts excuses for late assignments. With a painful little smile, you reflect that even if you’d died before you got out, she’d still expect your homework for her class to be complete, and for you to have shown all the appropriate work.

It’s hard to believe the rumors that she is or was romantically involved with Ms. Martineau. 

Where your guidance counselor is compassionate and encouraging - the sort of person you wish you'd ended up with as a mother - your math teacher is ruthless, and acts as if her class is the only one you’re taking.

C’est la vie.

You take out a pencil, and your compass - just in case you need it to sketch out an angle -  and read over the last question you’d been working on.

That’s easy enough; you only need to use the quadratic formula.

You pick up where you’d left off, somewhere around having plugged the coefficients into the formula, and continue from there. For all that you’re awful at it, you rather like math. It’s black and white. Seven squared will always be forty-nine.

Therefore, there isn’t anything heavily subjective about this class, and while you do adore your humanities classes, sometimes you appreciate the certainty of trigonometry or chemistry. Sometimes, you don’t want to be asked to write an analysis of Pol Pot’s regime as depicted in _The Killing Fields_ , or to evaluate the significance of the “unsex me here” soliloquy from _Macbeth._

Sometimes you don’t want to contemplate so many issues, to have to articulate your feelings and justify them. Sometimes, you don’t want to have feelings. Sometimes, you want to be blank as the whiteboard at the start of 6th period, an automaton devoid of emotion. That void does not lend itself to the sort of participation required of you in English or History.

‘Cause…

‘Cause…

Emotions, thoughts, and feelings hurt, they hurt worse than burn scars and busted lips and black eyes and betrayal and knowing you’re just a charity case and… _just look at you go, Callie._

 _Stop thinking!_ you tell yourself. _Focus on your work!_  

Even so, memories and worries fly past and swirl around you like snowflakes, and you cannot stop them. You can never stop them.

Only one way to fix it, with a trick you sort-of learned from Eridan. Eridan Ampora, and his penchant for long sleeves, and you’ve seen what lurks beneath them.

You put your pencil down, pick up your compass, and press the pointy end against the pale skin of your inner arm. You drive it in until you see blood beading at the point of contact, until the sharp pinch of pain has dragged you to the present. You repeat this once more, a little lower down your arm. You’re tempted to add a third mark, but the exercise has already served its purpose, you think numbly.

You’ll need to wash these after you finish this question. Your coping mechanisms may not be the greatest, but you don’t want to end up with an infection, and have to miss school, miss interacting with the people who make your existence something pleasant.

You sigh, take up your pencil once more, and show your work, neat and meticulous, ‘till you’re left with the following:

Faintly aware of the thin line of blood trickling down your arm - _did I really do that? really and truly? is that my blood?_ \-  you divide everything by 2 to simplify the expression fully, and circle your final answer in your favorite color ink. It’s something of a joke between you and Ms. Sakamoto.

After you’ve washed off your arm and applied a bandage, careful to awaken no one, you glance at your phone, whose screen has apparently been flashing for an indeterminable amount of time.

**8 missed messages.**

For one dizzying moment, you’re sure that they’re all threats from your brother, that he’s detailing exactly what he’s planning to do when he sees you tomorrow. However, your brother doesn’t type in blinding pink.

You shake your head and giggle, feeling lighter than you have all night. Who else would IM you at this time? Who else burns the midnight oil the way you do?

TG: heyy callie so  
TG: eriden told me abt wut happened w u tonight  
TG: fuck ur prolly asleep rite now ur idle as fuck  
TG: hope u got ur fone on silent and im not wakin u up  
TG: anyways like  
TG: just wanted to hit u up and ask if everythins ok  
TG: so uh yea  
TG: gratz on escapin ill totes get u a chocolate muffin tmrw to celebrate or somethin :)

Her last message arrived less than ten minutes ago. Perhaps she’s still up?

But it would be presumptuous to assume such, and risk awakening her. Or Rose, for that matter, seeing as they do share a room.

You really would like to speak to dear Roxy, though. She is one of your favorite people (maybe a little more than that, if you were to be frank with yourself.)

uranianUmbra [UU] began pestering tipsyGnostalgic [TG]  
UU: hello, roxy!  
TG: wh????  
TG: oh shit  
TG: it you!!!!!!!!!  
TG: omg  
UU: indeed, it is i.  
TG: holy shit ok so like  
TG: hows it going outta ur house  
TG: eridan says ur stayin at porrims thats gotta be awesome  
TG: she so cool  
TG: also y the f are u still up man  
UU: i coUld not sleep.  
UU: so i decided to make Use of this time to work on homework.  
TG: only u istg  
UU: i am cUrioUs as to why yoU are still Up, thoUgh.  
TG: ok so  
TG: my moms got drunker than fuckin hemmingway and passed out in the kitchen @ like 11  
TG: rosie and i dragged her 2 bed and were takin turns makin sure she doesnt die or somethin  
TG: cuz apparently u can actually die wen you drink AN ENTIRE JACK DANIELS  
UU: oh no, i had no idea aboUt yoUr mother.  
UU: i am so sorry yoU have to endUre that.  
UU: and i wish the best for yoU, rose, and yoUr mother.  
TG: yea  
TG: thanks  
TG: i think we got this  
TG: still idk i thought shed stop after we got rid of our dad  
TG: but nope  
TG: shes like  
TG: lost as fuck without him around go fuckin figure i dont even  
TG: so shes usually sauced  
UU: that mUst be worrying  
TG: yea kinda  
TG: she went harder than usual tonight  
TG: shes breathin and pretty responsive tho  
TG: and rosie and i got her rolled on her side like kanayna told us to do  
TG: accordion 2 her sister thats wut you gotta do w drunk ppl so when they puke they dont choke on it  
TG: according*  
TG: omg fuck autocorrect  
TG: anyways sry for talkin so much  
TG: ur the one with ridic amounts of shit goin on  
UU: i beg to differ.  
UU: yoU appear to also have qUite a nUmber of alarming things happening aroUnd yoU.  
TG: nah  
TG: like i said  
TG: its pretty much business as usual  
TG: bro stri is gonna watch her tomorrow so rose and i dont miss school  
UU: well, that mUch is relieving to know.  
TG: yea  
TG: cant wait for class tbh  
TG: i love my mom 2 death and back but i needa get the fuck outta here  
TG: ppl keep tellin me i remind them of her  
TG: and im like  
TG: wut?????? no??????  
TG: shes great when shes sober like i am dam proud to b like her but other times  
TG: fuck  
TG: ur lucky u escaped man   
TG: well not rly lucky  
TG: but  
UU: i Understand where yoU are coming from, do not worry aboUt it.  
TG: k good  
TG: so r they nice 2 u there  
UU: i have only been here a few hoUrs, bUt porrim and mitUna seem like lovely people.  
UU: thoUgh i have yet to officially speak with the latter.  
TG: yea idk abt that last thing  
TG: anyone whose related to sollux cant b all good  
TG: altho who knows maybe bein a dipshit skips genertations or somethin

You don’t bother to tell Roxy that Mituna and Sollux, as brothers, come from the same generation genetically speaking.

As you try to formulate a response to her latest string of messages, you read the next question you’ve been assigned.

Great. Trigonometric functions and the capital sigma sign. What does it mean? What do you do with it?

You don’t have the slightest clue of where to even start, which is terrible, because you know you had to have learned this at some point. Ms. Sakamoto may not be the nicest teacher, but she wouldn’t purposely assign you material you’ve never seen just to watch you fail.

So how would you graph this on your calculator? Surely you could, but how?

You’re useless, Callie. Absolutely useless. This is a fact, practically a scientific law.

But Roxy isn’t.

UU: i apologize for changing the sUbject so dramatically  
TG: its all good the subject prolly needed changin  
TG: like a diaper but w marginally less shit  
TG: so whats up  
UU: i am having a small problem with the math homework.  
TG: ah yes  
TG: tightass sakamoto and her eternal hells of infinite hw why oh why did i take this class  
TG: anyways  
TG: which question  
UU: 37  
UU: i do not know how to begin to solve it u_u  
TG: k hold up  
TG: checkin wat i got for that  
TG: o that one  
TG: its mad ez just looks kinda painful

This is one of the many reasons why you adore Roxy.

She knows so much, and yet she’s never been pretentious, or mean in any way. You’ve seen her turn in extra credit assignments for math, ones that involve odd elongated “S” looking symbols that she calls integrals, and that is far beyond the things the rest of you are learning, you’re certain of that much. 

Still, odd “S” symbols aside, she is Roxy, your Roxy, with her dimples, tenacity, impatience, and inability to think before she speaks.

UU: that is nice to hear.  
TG: so the answers 0  
UU: i thank yoU for the solUtion, and so promptly, but i believe i mUst show fUll work to get credit.  
TG: ok dude do u have ur calculator  
TG: cuz its way easier if u do  
TG: you gotta convert to radians like always  
TG: then graph the shit and look @ the chart  
TG: basically the questions just askin u to come up w the y values for n=1, n=2, and n=3, and then add em 2gether  
TG: thats wut the 3 above the sigma and the n=1 means  
TG: and since y equals 1, 0, and -1  
TG: ur final answer should be 0 wen you add them  
TG: write all that down and sketch out the graph man  
TG: u get it??

To say that you are even more confused now would be something of an understatement.

UU: perhaps it woUld be more illUminating if yoU showed me how yoU arrived at your conclUsion tomorrow morning.  
UU: i am not trying to disparage yoUr tUtoring skills, bUt some concepts need to be illUstrated, i think.  
UU: at least where i am concerned.  
TG: no problemo  
TG: and its ok i kno that was a shit explanation  
TG: but i gotchu in the mornin  
TG: i will learn you hella trigonometries  
TG: all the trigonometries in the universe  
TG: ok maybe not all of them thats a lotta trig

You thank her for her offer to “learn you hella trigonometries” just in time for her to inform you that it’s her turn to watch her mother again so Rose can get an hour and a half of sleep before they have to be up for school.

TG: btw rosie says hi and good luck  
TG: cya later

You stare at the fuchsia text until your vision blurs from your failure to blink. You want it to sear into your mind.

Leave it to Roxy Lalonde to improve your mood just by contacting you. Leave it to Roxy to contact you when she already has so much on her plate. You have no idea what it must be like to experience such a fundamental role-reversal, to have to act as guardian to your own parent.

At least your brother is and was only your brother.

Your parents are parental enough in terms of fulfilling their duties, even if they couldn’t protect you from Caliborn, even if your mother was hesitant to hear a word against him after he came back from that place.

At least they both tried. You think.

_You think. You think. You think. You think._

You think of banging your head against the adjacent wall.

You need to stop thinking; it never leads to anything good.

So you take out your heavy chemistry textbook, open it upon on your lap, and review balancing equations that include the diatomic seven. Yet another subject with clear-cut answers, at least at the level you’re learning it.

Your silent study must carry you for longer than you think, because before you know it, you hear an alarm go off, and nearly jump out of your skin, clutching the nearest piece of hanging clothing for dear life.

 _What in the…?_  

You peer out of the alcove.

It's only Porrim, kneeling over Mituna with her head bent low, the long ropes of her braids forming a curtain around her face. 

“No, no, Tuna, you can go back to sleep, don’t worry." She puts a finger to her lips. _"Shhh...."_

She gropes for something - her phone - and silences the alarm. 

Even in the semi-darkness, you notice the way her gaze darts around the apartment, alert and wary, until her eyes alight on you, at which point she relaxes. She pads over to the closet in her slippers, and takes inventory on its contents, including you. She has a little smile for the sight of most of your school books strewn around the floor. She yawns, and stretches her thin arms toward the ceiling, the golden rings through her eyebrows and lips glinting in the light.

“I take it you had some trouble sleeping,” she says.

You feel a little guilty about that.

All that work she did to make you a bed, and you barely even used it. You tuck your legs underneath you and stare at the floor.

“I’m sorry.”

She shakes her head. “S’no problem, Calliope. Everyone has nights like that, but you can wake me next time, got it? You don’t have to sit here alone all night.” She adds, with another yawn, “unless you want to be alone, of course.”

You shrug, because you honestly can’t say, but thank her for offering her company. You promise to find a way to repay her for it.

For a moment, she looks as if she might cry, eyes becoming suspiciously liquid, but the comes and goes so quickly that it may well have been a trick of the light. Or you projecting. Or both. She helps you collect and put your books away without a word.

“Also, I wouldn’t want to wake you up,” you confess. “Don’t you need sleep?”

She lets out a mirthless snort, and makes some comment about having carried twenty-two credits, and how she can go to sleep when she’s dead. And you’re not sure how university works, but twenty-two seems like a lot, at least the way she tells it. You wonder how many credits are in each class - surely more than one, _obviously more than one, maybe even three -_  but now doesn’t seem like the time to ask. 

Minutes later, with a joking grin, she quietly proclaims you the guest of honor in this apartment, and offers you first dibs on the shower. You can have as much hot water as you want, she promises. You dig clean clothes out of your bag, pull a clean blouse and pair of pants off a hanger, and make for the bathroom.

“D’you want breakfast? Coffee?” she asks over her shoulder, as she picks out her own respective outfit for the day. “Trick question, you’re probably going to need coffee today.”

You protest that you can acquire both of those things on your way to school, but she’s adamant about the whole thing. “I have to make breakfast for me and Tuna anyway, might as well make some for you too. You shouldn’t travel on an empty stomach, either.”

For lack of other things to discuss, she makes an incredulous suggestion that perhaps the mayor will cancel classes for public schools in the the city, in which case her university will follow suit, and you, she, and Mituna can spend the day watching terrible daytime television. She hasn't been home in time to watch Jerry Springer in a while.

“Then again, the last time they closed the schools was for the blizzard of ‘05, and that’s only since it was still snowing during rush hour,” she says. “It’s stopped now, so I think you might be out of luck, but I’ll listen to the radio while I’m getting breakfast together just in case.”

You hadn’t even considered that school might be canceled until she brought it up, so you don’t feel particularly unlucky. Besides, you want to go to school. You want to see your friends. You surely do.

Assessing your surroundings, you note that the bathroom in this apartment is far smaller than the one you grew up using, that the bathtub - if it could be called such - does not seem to be up to the task of seating a full-grown adult unless they decide to curl up uncomfortably. Everything has been scrubbed to an absolutely spotless shine though, save for a little grime up on the ceiling that would probably be impossible to reach without a ladder or stilts.

It’s cleaner than your bathroom ever was. You turn the taps until the water has reached a comfortable temperature, and then step into the shower.

Porrim says you can have all the hot water you want, but you don’t want to seem ungrateful. You take the quickest shower you can remember taking, partially for that reason, but also because your body makes you uncomfortable.

Look at the bumpy, scarred skin stretching from the lower half of your face down past your clavicle. Look at the same kind of scarring on one of your hands, from where you’d tried to shield your face with it. There’s other discomfort, but this is the most immediate.

You are an abomination, and even those who say otherwise only say so out of pity. Your parents called you the cutest thing when you and Caliborn were children. But now? That would be something of a cruel joke, wouldn’t it?

_Why? Why you? Why did this have to happen to you?_

_Not that you'd wish it on anyone else, but still._

Water cascading over your head, you cover your face with your hands and quiver in place. You wish you’d thought to bring your compass into the bathroom with you. Then, you could bring yourself back again. The soapy water flows down your face and into your lip, making it sting, and throwing your surroundings into sudden, comforting clarity. That will suffice for now.

You turn off the taps, towel yourself off, and dress, keeping your gaze averted from the mirror the way you have for the last few years. You’ve mastered the art of straightening your tie without having to look too hard at it.

By the time you wrench the bathroom door open, the apartment has filled with the aroma of cooking food. You can’t identify any of the spices, but your mouth waters with anticipation. You’re not a terrible cook by any means - you don't think you are, anyway - but you’re fairly sure that whatever Porrim’s making has to be on some whole new level of culinary excellence.

You glance at the futon. Mituna is still asleep, at least you assume he’s asleep, considering he’s cocooned the comforter around himself entirely. You walk past him. 

Meanwhile, Porrim leans against one of the counters in the kitchenette, sipping at what must be a cup of coffee, and picking at a small plate of food. She puts down her plate.

"I probably should have asked earlier, but you don't have any food allergies, do you?"

"Not that I know of," you reply. 

Two larger plates have been set on another counter, almost identical, except for several pills that have been set out beside one of them. That is a lot of medication. Is someone ill? Are they contagious? You decide not to ask.

If the latter were the case, Porrim would have definitely said something. 

Porrim smiles once more, informs you that she’s put your duffel bag down by the futon, and - after downing the remainder of her coffee in three gulps - walks away, ostensibly to take a shower.

“That’s your plate,” she says, pointing to the one without the constellation of pills surrounding it. “Don’t worry. I’ll be out in a few.”

For once, you actually aren’t worried. You devour your plate of what seems to be rice, beans, and some sort of fish, barely coming up for air even once. You don’t mean to be so ravenous and impolite, but you haven’t had a proper meal since the same time yesterday.

You didn’t eat lunch, and you barely touched the fries Eridan got you. Too salty and painful while your split lip was so fresh. So yeah, twenty-ish hours, give or take. And this is so good. You need to ask her what it's called. You could eat it every day.

Thinking it over, you realize that you could grow accustomed to Porrim’s almost maternal solicitousness, to the closet in which you can seek refuge whenever things become too overwhelming. You pour yourself a cup of coffee, adding milk and sugar until it tastes more palatable. Maybe everything doesn’t have to be painful.

You’re safe, after all. You savor the very idea of it like a particularly sweet piece of candy.

Then, you hear something crash in the main room, and flinch so hard that you nearly drop your plate.

A man lets out a colorful collection of swear words, rapidly and through a nigh-incoherent lisp.

“Who in the hell thought it was a good idea to put some fuckin’ bag right next to the futon… “ He trails off, and then continues, even angrier. “Coulda broke my f-fuckin’ neck, alas poor Tuna, we knew that dipshit, Horatio…”

The owner of the voice marches into the kitchen, mouth downturned in an utterly livid frown.

You try not to recoil too hard, nor to beg him not to punch you, _please, please, please_.

In your experience, your begging has always fallen on deaf ears anyway. 

You remind yourself that this must be Mituna - Porrim's Mituna, _Latula's_ Mituna - this tall, gangly person wearing a Pac-Man pajama shirt and a pair of bee-patterned boxer shorts, and he probably won't hurt you. He rubs at his stubble with his thumb, head cocked to one side in confusion.  

He stares at you (at least you think he’s staring at you, you can’t see his eyes through the mop of jet black hair obscuring them).

You stare right back at him. Maybe if you stare hard enough, he’ll go away.

Then, he turns on his heel, and walks straight out of the kitchen.

Well. That worked. Score one for you.

“Popo!” he shouts, at what sounds like the top of his lungs. “We need to talk!”

You hear the bathroom door open, and then Porrim’s soothing voice, even if you can’t make out exactly what she has to say.

She must be explaining something to him, because’s stopped yelling for now. They engage in their murmured exchange for a minute or two, and then Mituna remarks, at a volume that suggests that he has no real indoor voice and you probably shouldn't take it personally, “…still coulda warned me or something, Jesus tapdancing Christ…”

He returns to the kitchen, this time gawking at you with his mouth open wide enough to catch flies. You can feel his gaze settle on your facial burns, on your busted lip, and you really do want to cry. Cry and tell Porrim that you’ll find somewhere else to go because you can’t do this. You cannot.

He seems fairly nice, but... the staring. Your cheeks burn. As uncomfortable as his stare feels, you try for your most polite tone.

The inside of your mouth seems as if it has transmuted into sandpaper.

“I’m Calliope,” you tell him, managing to keep your voice steady. “Calliope Calver.”

You pour yourself another cup of coffee, turn to face him fully, and extend your hand.  He gives it a bewildered, perfunctory shake.

“I’m uh…” He looks to the area of the kitchen on either side of you, then settles on your face again. “I’m Mituna.” 

Then, with the corners of his mouth twitching up into something like a smile, he points to the coffee pot and asks, “you done with that?”

You nod and hand it to him. “Certainly. Would you like some?”

He grabs the handful of pills around the other plate, throws them into his mouth, takes a gulp of black coffee straight from the pot, and swallows everything down in one motion. It might as well be a magic trick for its fluidity.

“Sorry ‘bout before,” he goes on, slightly quieter now. “You and your bag just startled me is all.”

The “startled” comes out more like “thtartled”, just like Sollux, and you suppress the momentary urge to laugh and marvel at the similarity. First off, it’ll hurt your mouth, and second off, laughing at someone is no way to make a first impression, however benign your intentions may be.

He rubs his eyes and yawns loudly.

“It’s alright. I would have been startled too,” you tell him.

For that, he has a legitimate grin, and his hands give one great tremor that threaten to drop the plate he’s holding.

If this is out of the ordinary, he says nothing.

“Long as we’re on the same page, yo.”

Porrim returns to the kitchen at that point, fully clothed as far as you can gather, with one hand balancing the towel she’s wrapped around her head. Her other fist is clenched, something concealed within it.

However, her complaints to Mituna apprise you of the fact that she lacks one key part of her outfit for the day: her makeup.

Mituna wraps his arms around her waist from behind, leans down to rest his head on her shoulder, and plants a kiss on the shell of her ear.

“You know you look fine as hell no matter what,” he replies, with surprising sensitivity.

Porrim turns and rolls her eyes. “You always say that, and you know it’s bull.”

But his fingers creep up and down her sides, eliciting a series of giggles from her.

_(You think of you and Dirk in the courtyard during 8th period, where he keeps giving you and Roxy piggy back rides. Roxy's laughter skips up and down the register of sound._

_Was that less than a year ago?_

_Was that only freshman year?)_

"Tuna, my  _hair!"_ Porrim protests, some of her braids having worked their way free from their towel. He doesn't let up. 

Porrim stands up on her tip-toes, so they’re almost nose-to-nose, feet and ankles shaking from the effort, looking as if she might argue. Mituna picks her up and swings her around in a small half circle. His hands shake abruptly.

You hear Porrim's teeth click together so roughly that it must be painful, as she's nearly been dropped. However she just shakes her head at him, trying not to break into a wide smile again. 

_(You and Jane and Gamzee sit in a triangle in the grass, playing Cat's Cradle. Your scarred hand isn't nearly as deft, so your movements must be awfully clumsy, but they don't say anything._

_"I think this is the furthest we've gotten!" Jane remarks._

_"Reckon you gotta be right, Jane." Gamzee turns to you, the string wound intricately between all of his fingers. "You're fuckin' miraculous, Callie-sis."_

_He's so painfully earnest at all times that you think he might not be lying just to be kind. You don't think he knows how to lie. At all. Not even when it would probably help him, such as when teachers ask him if he's been too busy smoking marijuana outside to go to their classes.)_

Meanwhile, back in the present, Porrim adjusts her hair and clucks at Mituna. 

"Who gives a shit? Looks good to me," he responds. “Would ever I lie?”

Porrim exhales sharply, and snorts.

“You told me you’d never smoke weed in this apartment.”

Mituna affects something approaching guilt.

“Whoops.”

Porrim sinuously extricates herself from Mituna’s hold, and opens one of her hands to reveal a mostly spent tube of triple antibiotic, and an unopened adhesive bandage. When she beckons you toward her, you comply. Once again - like a callback to last night - she takes your chin in between two of her fingers.

“Wish I had Betadine to put on it,” she remarks. “But it’s scabbed over, so I don’t think it would make much difference anyway.”

She lets go of you for long enough to tear a few pieces of paper towel off the dispenser above the sink, wet them, and dab a little soap upon one. She uses this to clean off your busted lip. She squeezes a small volume of the triple antibiotic onto another square of paper towel, which she dabs against your lip. Then, somehow, without really touching any part of it, she unwraps the bandage and presses it upon the wound, sealing it tightly.

“That looks a little better, don’t you think?” she asks Mituna.

"You got this, Popo."

You’re thankful she hasn’t asked you what _you_ think, hasn’t suggested that you take a gander at your reflection, because there are not enough band-aids on earth for that.

You think you have yourself under control, but you can’t be sure.

Then, Porrim glances at the kitchen clock and swears with uncharacteristic vehemence. Or maybe it’s characteristic vehemence. While you’ve never heard Kanaya swear so pointedly, you haven’t known her sister for long enough to figure out how similar they really are. 

“You’d better get going, or you’ll be late for your 8:30 class,” she tells you. “But wait, before you leave…”

You’ve also never heard second period described like that before.

 _Your 8:30 class._ It sounds like you go to university or something, and it fills you with a strange sort of confidence.

She hands you a dark-yellow backpack, slightly dusty from disuse.

Mituna throws his hands up and wants to know where she gets off casually giving his stuff away without asking.

“She didn’t bring anything but the duffel bag with her,” Porrim says calmly, looking apologetic just the same. “And does she look like the sort to lose a bag _you don’t even use or like_ at the drop of a dime?”

Truth be told, you’d rather take your overladen duffel bag and absolve yourself from any guilt you might feel related to borrowing Mituna’s possessions. 

But you’ve also taken a look outside through the window, and the sidewalk snow has settled in great drifts. Maybe traveling lighter will help you traverse these more easily, particularly in the Bronx, where the snow is always deepest. The Bronx and Queens always get hit the hardest.

Perhaps Caliborn will beg Mum and Dad to let him stay home today. He hates school that much, and they’re permissive enough to allow it. You hold onto that hope, smiling optimistically, but not wide enough to disturb your bandage.

“I was just screwing around, dude, don’t sweat it. Take it,” Mituna insists.

You make quick work of cramming all the books you’ll need for the day into the bag.

He shakes his hair out of his eyes, displaying his mismatched eyes - one blue, and one brown - and, when he grimaces at the amount of snow out the window, his mismatched teeth. No wonder he lisps so heavily.

You think of your own braces, still set across your mouth like railroad tracks, and feel a pity pang of pain for him. 

He gives you a little push in the back with the heel of his hand. “C’mon, better get the fuck outta here. Popo said you had an 8:30 class.”

“That’s right,” you reply.

“Which one?”

Standing behind Mituna, now, Porrim is able to slip you a cryptic look that her roommate doesn’t catch. 

Then you get it, you understand what she’s doing. She’s trying to help you.

Your 8:30 class. Hm.

_What sort of classes do university students take, you wonder?_

You rack your brains and respond with the most formidable sounding one that comes to mind (that is not a hard science).

“Sociology.”

.“Who the hell would sign up for a pointless class at the asscrack of dawn, ‘sides Cranky?” Mituna laughs, zipping the smaller pocket of the bag on your back. “Good luck, Cal. You’re gonna need it.”

That name.

That single syllable.

Those three letters, arranged in a certain order.

That total of all your fear and contempt - summation, sigma, like Roxy tried to teach you mere hours ago - tucked into one neat morpheme.

Determined to maintain your composure, you unlock the door, open it, and walk out before you act on your urge to seize him by the shirt collar for such an insult, for such purposefully biting mockery, and punch him square in the face. 

Rational Calliope wrests the reins from your furious side, and guilt slams into you almost tangibly, tears gathering at the corners of your eyes. _Why would you contemplate such a thing? Why would you want to resort to violence?_

_Do you want to be like Caliborn?_

_Do you?_

Chances are Mituna didn’t mean it that way. Didn’t mean to call you by your brother’s name. It was an honest mistake, easy to make.

Your names are, sadly, rather similar.

You stand on the landing for the apartment, willing your breathing to normalize, willing the pounding in your head to dull before a major blood vessel in your brain bursts and makes you stroke out.

And you hear them. That inseparable pair, best friends. You catch snippets of their conversation, and realize that they’re arguing, and this is no half-hearted back and forth. You can hear anger on both sides.

“…breakfast, last week you told me and Meenah and 'Tula you’d eat every…”

A lull in the dialogue, where they are momentarily too low to hear, but not for long.

Porrim’s voice, now.

“… actually shocked as to how self-righteous you can get when I know you’ve been hiding your Abilify under your plate and throwing it out each morning…”

“…makes me fucking twitchy! I’m not gonna die of not twitching! But you need food!”

Another pause where you manage to discern nothing coherent, much longer than the last one.

You creep a bit closer to the door so you can hear everything.

“…and I promise you, she’s a freshman at Lehman College,” Porrim insists. “Do try to modulate your paranoia.”

“Paranoia, nothing. If she’s a day older than _sai lo_ , I’ll eat all the candles on her next birthday cake. Don't insult my intelligence!”

You have no idea what _sai lo_ means, but you’re ashamed for eavesdropping.

"I'm not trying to insult your intelligence," Porrim says, in a defeated tone. "I'm sorry."

"Whatever." Something falls to the floor and Mituna swears loudly. "...and if you're sorry, tell me what's going on."

"I will, I will, I just  _can't_ right now. Please understand."

Something about that must catch him because this _"whatever"_  comes out significantly less pissed off than the previous one did.

You pull away, then.

They’ve offered you houseroom, and a bag for your stuff, and you’re spying on them, when you should be trying to get to school on time.

You take the steps down two at a time, the cold air biting into your exposed skin - the upper part of your face, and a thin strip between your gloves and the sleeves of your winter coat, but not too badly.

How would you feel if someone listened in on an fight between you and Roxy, or you and Jane? 

As if either of you would ever argue, but still.

In the light of day, rendered brilliant dazzling white by the snow’s reflection, you find the Grand Street stop easily. No scary, blind wanderings this time around. And, standing beside the steps leading down into the station, you message the only person on your friends’ list who isn’t idle.

 

uranianUmbra [UU] began pestering twinArmageddons [TA]  
UU: so sorry to bother yoU bUt i have a qUestion  
TA: you and MT both  
TA: practiically me22aged me 2iimultaneou2ly.  
TA: a2k whatever you want.  
TA: cant be more annoyiing than hiim.  
UU: well, iif ii am getting on the D at grand street, where woUld i get off in order to get to school?  
TA: bedford park blvd and then walk a few block2.  
TA: iit2 liike one of the la2t 2top2, iit 2houldnt be two hard two fiind your way.   
UU: thank yoU for yoUr assistance!  
UU: it means a great deal!  
TA: …  
TA: ugh, you know what?  
TA: fuck.  
TA: you never take the traiin, riight?  
UU: i took the sUbway jUst last night!  
TA: ii mean, be2iide2 la2t niight.  
UU: i mUst admit, it is not a form of transportation have i Utilized on a regUlar basis.  
TA: that2 what ii thought.  
TA: 2o meet me at 161st 2treet, above ground, iin forty-fiive miinute2.  
TA: at the 2top for the 4 traiin.  
TA: we wiill go twogether.  
UU: are yoU sUre?  
TA: yes iim 2ure, 2top wa2tiing my battery liife wiith 2tupiid questiion2.  
TA: try not to get two lo2t.  
UU: Understood!

You obey Sollux’s instructions to the letter, sitting on the rush-hour train as it gathers commuters and speed with nary an anxious thought.

Even if you’re not sure where you’re going, even if you don’t recognize any of the stations you pass, Sollux would never steer you wrong. He’s brilliant. just like Roxy. 

That’s why they’re rivals of the first degree, because nobody can establish who knows more than the other, not even the assistant principals.

You take out all the assignments you’ve been given over weekend - English, AP World, Spanish, Trig, and Chem - and look them over. 

You already know your understanding of the first three is at or near the top of your class, so you hardly pay those any attention. Only the latter two subjects give you pause.

You understand enough chemistry to hold your grade at or near a 90.

But math? You got a 43 on your last exam. You need all the help you can get, and you still might have to take the class over anyway.

You’ll find a way to pass if it kills you.

Finally, the conductor calls out 161st Street - Yankee Stadium. 

You put your books away, zip Mituna’s bag shut, and make your way up all the endless flights of stairs.

Sollux told you to meet you at the highest level, at the 4 train stop, where the tracks are elevated several feet above ground, and the wind is positively merciless. You do hope you're in the right place.

You find him soon enough, seated sourly and imperiously atop a trash can, as if someone made a mistake and it were actually a throne.

Once he sees you, he jumps off, and either laughs or coughs.

He doesn’t speak until the Bronx-bound train pulls into the station, and he subsequently grips on one the poles like it owes him money.

“Good to see MT hasn’t killed you,” he says, loosening his scarf, which is the same color gold as Mituna’s backpack. “PR’s more responsible than anyone deserves, but goh go could kill a cactus, I swear…”

Ever interested in languages, you ask him what that phrase means, and consequently learn what the Cantonese word for older brother is. 

Remembering the conversation you weren’t supposed to hear, you ask Sollux about “ _sai lo”,_ and find out that means younger brother.

That’s what Tuna was saying, then. That he was certain you couldn’t be older than Sollux.

(You are, by roughly five months, so there.)

After he’s through with the foreign language lesson, to support his assertion that Mituna should not be trusted to keep so much as a rock alive, Sollux regales you with the story of how Mituna and his friend Kurloz (whose name sounds dizzyingly familiar, though you can’t figure out how) were in Biology together a few years ago and were given the task of creating a small biome from a cut-open, empty-two liter soda bottle, filled with compatible plants and animals (slugs, pillbugs, and ants). They followed their teacher’s instructions to the letter and still managed to kill everything, including the plants, which was some kind of new record for incompetence.

By the time he’s concluded that tale, you still have at least ten to fifteen minutes left on the train before the appropriate stop.

You recall your incomplete math homework, which Ms. Sakamoto will almost certainly collect today. She warned everyone on Friday that the Collection, no, the Reckoning was coming, cobalt eyes flashing. 

Sollux is also in your trigonometry class, though he spends the period writing pages upon pages of code for his true pride and joy: the robotics team.

You tell him about your problems with the assignment. He wipes his glasses, which have fogged up, on his scarf and puts them back on.

“So where’d you fuck up?” he wants to know, with his typical level of tact.

You pull out your folder, open it, and point to where you’ve left number 37 mostly blank. You gesture to the sigma, to the 3 above it, to the n=1 and the trigonometric function rather helplessly.

“Roxy tried to explain it to me last night, but—”

Sollux raises an eyebrow.

“Obviously she _failed_ , judging from the work you’ve shown or _lack thereof_.”

That’s rather mean of him to say, and you plan to tell him exactly that, but he’s already torn a sheet of scrap paper out of his History notebook and begun solving the problem from the beginning, using a train door as a flat surface.

He walks you through each step, surprisingly patient with you. He doesn’t mock you for having forgotten how to properly program your graphing calculator, or for not even knowing how sigma notation works.

Slowly, almost serene, he walks you through each step - ignoring the way the train sways and jumps and and clatters and shakes, moving with it as if it were a living thing and he a part of it - until he’s come to the same answer Roxy had. Zero.

Trying and failing to balance with the same ease that he does, you quickly write down the steps in your own notes. Maybe you could even duplicate it with a similar question, if push came to shove. You get this concept now.

Starting to sweat under your many layers of clothing - Porrim bundled you up far too much before you left - you repeatedly offer Sollux your utmost gratitude.

He shrugs.

“It's nothing, Callie,” he replies, as the pair of you exit the train. He checks his phone and sneers spectacularly. “And speaking of nothing, KK has been waiting for me at 205th for almost half an hour.”

If that’s true, you pity Karkat. He’s barely taller than you are. And true to form, Karkat curses  _“his godforsaken best friend in the universe”_ out at the maximum possible volume as soon as he notices him leaving the train station.

“...AND IN THE AMOUNT OF TIME I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR YOUR SKINNY ASS, I WOULD HAVE HAD ENOUGH TIME TO GO TO THE GHETTO TRUCK, ORDER A HUNDRED DOLLARS WORTH OF FOOD, BRING IT HERE, EAT HALF OF IT, FIND GAMZEE AND HIS BONG, DRAG THEM BOTH INSIDE, GO BACK TO CLASS, DO RESEARCH, GO TO COLLEGE, GET A DOCTORATE, CURE CANCER, BUY A YACHT, COME BACK HERE AND STILL WONDER WHERE THE FUCK YOU COULD POSSIBLY BE.”

Ah, yes, Karkat. While raised voices normally terrify you - they remind you too much of your brother - Karkat’s has become a regular enough part of your daily routine that you barely react. You actually enjoy his presence, although your saying so would probably piss him off. 

Nevertheless, he cares about people. He listens and actually tries to get them.

Not at the moment, though.

“Sorry for making you wait,” Sollux says, with poorly concealed amusement. Karkat goes an impressive shade of tomato red, given his darker skin tone.

“DO YOU HAVE THE SLIGHTEST GODDAMN IDEA HOW DEEP THIS SHIT IS? THERE’S SNOW DRIFTS TALLER THAN I AM IN THE COURTYARD, YOU USELESS FUCK.”

He acknowledges you as something of an afterthought, managing to speak at an almost conversational volume as far as you’re concerned. “And yeah, uh, Callie. Good to see you,” he says. 

Awkward as those few minutes are, you almost prefer his fumbling attempts to be civil with you to all the commotion that follows.

You’re not sure who told everyone you know about your situation - Roxy, Eridan, none of the above, or all of the above - but by the time first period is over, you’ve been swarmed with people offering to walk you to and from classes.

“…I shall endeavor to ensure your safety with the utmost STRENGTH,” Equius swears up and down, sweating bullets even though he’s wearing nothing but his customary T-shirt, jeans, and work boots.

Kanaya swears she’ll beat Caliborn clear to Westchester with her T-square if he so much as glances at you.

Vriska promises that she has something special in store for your loathsome brother, and you really don't _want_ to know what Vriska could do when she's intentionally trying to be malevolent.

During 2nd period English, Dirk smoothly offers you use of his alleged killbots. "Just say the word," he says. 

Feferi offers to drown Caliborn in the reservoir during 3rd.

Rose spies Caliborn across the hallway between 4th and 5th and brandishes her knitting needles at him. That’s not even everyone.

You can’t begin to quantify the outpouring of support for you and vitriol against him.

You appreciate the gestures, the solidarity, the encouragement, the warmth, you really do, but you wish they’d leave you be for a moment. 

Just so you can collect yourself. Just so you can get oriented to the way things are now.

Can’t you have some time for you outside of the claustrophobia-inducing bathroom? You wish you were smaller so you could physically squeeze yourself into a locker and shut it for a while.

As it stands, during your lunch period, you feel dizzy with all these wonderful people crowded around you, vowing to protect you no matter what. 

_You._

_You._

_You._

_You who have never deserved this kind of positivity._

_You, who cannot breathe. Is this some sort of ironic punishment for thinking you could get away?_

You make brielf eye contact with Caliborn, and that’s almost more relieving than the great crowd pressing upon you, than all the multicolored eyes watching your every movement.

You gaze at the ceiling tiles of the cafeteria and feel as if you might faint.

Only Roxy, Eridan, and Jane seem to pick up on it.

Jane shoves people aside, letting brute force do the talking when her voice is too gentle.  

Roxy shouts, _yeah, okay dipshits, show’s over, let’s all get to fuckin’ class before we get detention!”_ in that way of hers, breath reeking of hard alcohol, and voice ringing through the entirety of the cafeteria.

Some small part of you worries about the fact that her mother was not the only one who'd been drinking in the last 24 hours, but the rest of you feels either overwhelmed or stunned, to an extent where you can’t make sense of who you are, much less what’s going on around you.

As your heart struggles to hammer in your throat, it’s hummingbird beat making you feel weak. You’re going to have a heart attack and die, and you won’t have handed in your essay for Mr. A’s class, and you’re screwed, you’re so screwed, you’ll never be safe.

– there is **no such thing** as _safe_ for **_people like you_ ** –

Eridan practically drags you out one of the school’s side entrances, and several blocks over to Van Cortlandt Park.

You don’t calm down until he brushes snow off one of the seats underneath the playground, sits down, and guides you to sit down next to him. Water seeps through your many layers of clothing, and you are literally going to freeze your butt off here, but you can’t bring yourself to feel anything about it either way.

He waits until you’ve opened your eyes, which you jammed shut as soon as he began pulling you away from the school and down the sidewalk, before he speaks.

“So, Callie,” he begins. “A lot of people care about you. A lot.”

You shake your head emphatically, trying to make him understand.

You only wished for a way to escape from Caliborn’s fits of temper. You didn’t ask for some sort of personal army. You didn’t ask every friend, acquaintance, and friendquaintance of yours to vow revenge on Caliborn. 

You don’t want this. You don’t want it. Not at all. Unable to speak reliably, you try to gesture the gist of that message to him, and for his part, due to having known you for several years, he gets what you’re trying to express.

“Yeah, well, summa them are fuckin’ idiots,” he says. He taps his fingers against one of the cold, metal bars of the playground equipment. “Most of ‘em, actually.”

You don’t want to nod, because that would be disrespectful toward their gestures, ones they surely mean with only the best intent, but…

Eridan puts his hand on yours, squeezes gently the same way he always does. “It’ll be alright, though. Rezi and Megs and Tav and the rest of our crew‘ll set ‘em right. Tell ‘em to give you some air. Chill the fuck out.”

“Chill the fuck out,” you repeat, wooden and skeptical.

“Chill the fuck out,” Eridan grins, taking out and lighting a cigarette. “We got this.”

You two sit and do nothing but breathe silently for the longest time. Feeling as if you might overheat, you untie your scarf so abruptly that it takes Porrim’s bandage off with it, a clean, sharp discomfort that yanks you back to here and now.

“Okay.”

Eridan tightens the ties on his hood. “But ‘till then, maybe you should go home.”

He clarifies that he means the apartment down in Chinatown before you have the opportunity to let out a terrified whine. You look at your watch. Seventeen minutes left in 7th period, and then 8th and 9th in their entirety.

You try to convey to him how imperative it is that you don’t cut school, particularly now, after what you’ve done. The slightest misstep could have you discovered and sent home. He just rolls his eyes.

“They’re not gonna mark you down for the whole day,” he insists. “You got 7th lunch, so that doesn’t count. Only 2 periods a class cut. 2 detentions is less than a week, Callie.”

Eridan would know. Eridan knows the ins and outs of the disciplinary system, having been subjected to it frequentl. He ditches class often enough to go across the street and do whatever he does. Rumor has it that he’s into _other_  drugs every now and then, not just the weed that every other disaffected rebellious high school student smokes.

You don’t ask, and he doesn’t tell. So, although you possibly shouldn’t, you trust him at his word.

And because you  _can_ trust him, you tell him how it’s not over, how you don’t have enough clothes with you, how you’re going to have to go home eventually, face your parents, face your brother, face everyone, and you can’t do it, _you can’t, you can’t, you can’t…._

He shakes his head. “You can burn that bridge when you come to it.”

He quickly realizes he’s got the saying wrong, tries to amend it, but it feels better his way. Probably because it’s closer to the truth. 

“You’re right.”

"I'll come with you if you want."

"You don't have to."

"I'll bring Latula, too."

"You  _really_ don't have to."

That... makes you feel better, though. You'll have them if and when you need to go back - oh please let it be  _if._

You clasp Eridan's gloved hand in yours, and walk with him to the train station, downtown bound far too early. But as long as you have him, as long as you have one member of the old elementary school crew, who knows you

_(who remembers who you were Before)_

you can hold yourself together.

He can attest to your past. He can reassure you of the possibility of your future. 

More than anything else, you wish you could call Latula, but she’s offline and probably either working or sitting in class.

Maybe Porrim, then. She'll be home, and maybe she won't be terribly busy, and maybe she'll have time to listen. She would make time to listen to you.

(You're not certain how you feel about that.)

However, when you finally do reach the apartment, Mituna’s the one who buzzes you in and answers the door.

All classes at his and Porrim’s school have been canceled as of 12PM, but Porrim actually went to school for the classes that weren’t canceled, mass transit delays be damned.

Furthermore, she has to work today - at some clothing store near Astor Place - and decided to go in, since they hadn’t given her the day off.

“She’s a fuckin loony,” he mutters, after he pauses the game. “Gonna snap her goddamn ankle on ice, and then we’re gonna have hospital bills and shit.”

Mituna informs you that he has been resting his bony ass on the couch, eating Cap’n Crunch, and playing Sonic 2 for the entire day, because fuck any professor that decided to hold class today, and fuck anyone who decided to show up at Gamestop today to purchase something from the store at which he works. He’s a cashier. He doesn’t get paid enough to freeze to death.

You’re actually kind of thankful that tonight isn’t one of your nights to work. You don’t know how you would have managed to get home at midnight, after dealing with your friends all day, and bussing tables for several hours.

“Wanna play?” Mituna asks, and you’re not sure whether he’s talking to you, or the guy holding your hand.

Neither is Eridan.

As it turns out, it makes no difference. Both of you are awful, and Mituna teaches both of you how not to die five times a zone. He makes hot chocolate for you and Eridan, and throws you his old math team sweatshirt so you have yet another layer of clothing to keep yourself warm.

You’re sure there’s no way he believes that you’re in college anymore, particularly with Eridan around. He doesn’t ask why you’re home at 2:40, even though 9th period doesn’t end until 3:30, and he knows - because of his brother - that the bell schedule hasn’t changed since he graduated in 2007.  

Mituna doesn’t ask. 

You don’t tell. 

After Eridan’s gone home, but before Porrim returns, he takes hold of your shoulder, slowly enough to give you time to shrug or flinch it off. You don’t. You set your cup of hot chocolate on the floor.

“I’m sorry,” he tells you, squeezing. and letting go.

You inhale. Exhale. 

_Why should he apologize for any of this? He never hurt you._

All he wants to do is help. You’re the one who barged into his apartment without warning. You should be grateful. You are grateful. You should be more grateful. You should be appropriately guilty for the urge you had to hurt him. You should leave before you do something impulsive and bad.

You are Calliope Calver, and you like to think that you are kind, but there are moments when you get angry, and they terrify you.

You cannot be like that. You cannot. _You will not._

But blood is thicker than water. You may yet be a Caliborn in the making.

“I’ll be alright,” you reply, swallowing the grimdark thoughts that try to claw their way from your throat and into the air, where they can grow, where they can feed, where they can slip out and beyond your control.

Mituna leans toward you, with his breathing slow and measured, almost pointedly so. “It’s cool if you’re not. You don’t have to be.”

It’s only when he puts his hand on his abdomen, and begins to count seconds, that you realize he expects you to follow his lead.

Breathe in. _Count._ Breathe out. _Count._ You gaze into the blue eye that his bangs don’t obscure.

This is Latula’s boyfriend. This is Porrim’s best friend.

You think of all the pills he downed this morning, _just business as usual, nothing strange to see here, kiddo._

This is someone with a _history_ , a present, and a future all his own, one that happens to run parallel with yours for however long you stay here, but will ultimately branch off towards its own destination.

(Like lines on a train map.)

This is Sollux’s brother, whom the aforementioned denies missing even as he does little more than talk about him to you, because you live with him now.

Angrily. Proudly. Contemptuously. Wistfully. Always brimming with emotion, practically boiling over, rocking to and fro with his enthusiasm.

_(MT this, MT that._

_...He tried to teach me how to skateboard once, and only once..._

_...Mituna and I, we were always…_

_...I code better, but he started learning first. The basics of what I know, I learned from him..._

_...And our aunt told him to stop climbing on the roof of the shed, but did he listen? Hell no! Because he’s denser than dark matter! And then when the ceiling collapsed, and he’d broken two bones, all he could say was “Oh man, that was so awesome.”)_

“When he left, he wouldn’t say why,” Sollux muttered this morning, as the train reached Kingsbridge Road. “He said he’d tell me eventually, but it’s been months and he hasn’t said a word. Did I _do_ something? What did I _do_?”

You didn’t know. You don’t know.

You’re unsure of how to find out, or if it’s your place to do such a thing. You don’t know how or where you belong in the scheme of things exactly.

“I _miss_ him,” Sollux said then, a little louder. “I know he doesn't live far but I don’t want to go over unless he invites me. Don’t want to bother him, you know?.”

Your relationship with your brother is so fractured that you could understand those feelings on a theoretical level, but never really empathize, so you shook your head.

“No, I don’t know.”

"Yeah, that's right. I forgot, sorry."

In the present, Mituna hands you the controller.

“Up and at ‘em, Callie.”

You unpause the game, and die less than five seconds later. You don’t get visibly pissed, because that would be overreacting even for you, but you’re frustrated. He gave you the controller and you fucked everything up with barely a second to breathe.

“Let me show you how,” he tells you with astonishing tenderness.

And he does. Twitching, shaking, yet patient, he does. He performs the movements, and has you repeat them until you get them mostly right, and doesn’t swear once. You must die a zillion times.

Hours pass. The sky darkens further. 

Once you’re done with your lessons in vidyagameology (his name, not yours), Mituna decides to use the shitty television as a marginally less shitty computer monitor, and hooks everything up.

While you’re focused on the math homework for today’s class - mostly a review for the midterm -  which is good, because you were utterly unable to concentrate on the lesson, he stops playing Unreal Tournament for long enough to tell you that you graphed y=-x^3 upside down, barely even glancing at your sheet of looseleaf. Not half an hour later, for a different question, he reminds you that you’re only supposed to be finding the intersections for two equations across the interval −6 ≤ x ≤ 6, making all other x values irrelevant.

He then dies to some poorly rendered entity, swears loudly enough that the dog next door begins to bark, pounds his fist against the wall, and rages at the television set, “ _god fucking holy fucking assfuckers in hell, we said no sniper rifles! I’ll ram my fucking rocket launcher up your ass, you cheating jank ass scrub!”_

He’s quick to clarify that he’s yelling at the television, at the other players, and not you.

Right. You decide he must be like Karkat, except tall, good at science, and twitchy.

“Are you a math major or something?” you ask, once he’s marginally calmer.

He performs some kind of expert maneuver, kills several enemies in rapid succession, and shouts _“BOOM HEADSHOT!”_ repeatedly before finally responding.

“Nah, man. Physics is my shit.”

He makes some joke about getting off on Newtonian mechanics (what’s that?) that completely flies over your head. You try to imagine this foul-mouthed lazy person studying the physical sciences, and you could somehow believe it.

He lets out some unholy war cry and goes back to massacring other players. Occasionally, he’ll point out which weapon is which to you, as if he expects you to remember. You might. Possibly. But not right now.

Your hot chocolate tastes surprisingly good cool, congealed marshmallows and everything. In between rounds, Mituna musses your hair with his free hand until it’s almost as messy as his. You don’t balk at the physical contact. It doesn’t even occur to you to do so.

If you can put your trust in Porrim, maybe you can do the same with Mituna, with the tremors in his hands, the keyboard at his fingertips, the pills in the cabinet, the flippancy of his demeanor, and the occasional odd distance in his gaze.

_“It’s cool if you’re not alright. You don’t have to be.”_


End file.
